God Has Spoken To Us By His Son

Hebrews 1:1-12 Every year it seems like the pressure grows, from the world around us, to abandon true meaning of Christmas. 

In days gone by almost every public space had a manger scene at this time of year.  Those are largely gone.  You could count on being greeted with “Merry Christmas” as you did your shopping but now it is “Happy Holidays” if that.  Christmas concerts at our schools would feature sacred music that is part of the Christian tradition but now it’s Jingle Bells and Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer to make sure we don’t mention Jesus.

This kind of pressure to abandon Jesus is nothing new.  The Jewish Christians in the early Church faced it too.  The pagan Roman culture around them made their public lives difficult and their friends and family members who remained in Judaism made life at home difficult as well.

Everywhere they turned they were under attack for their faith in Jesus and many began to think that it would be easier to just go along.

That is why these words were written:  to warn us that turning away from Jesus and going along with an unbelieving culture is the worst thing that we can do—to remind us that Jesus is everything and to turn away from him is to abandon God.  The Bible says that:  Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,

The story of Jesus does not begin with his birth but stretches back in time for thousands of years.

The bloody skins God provided for Adam and Eve told the story of Jesus and the sacrifice God provided in him.  The ram caught in the thicket that was a substitute for Isaac was a picture of Jesus.  The snake Moses lifted up on a pole for people to look to and be saved was a sign of the crucifixion.  The high priest who made atonement by offering a sacrifice was a image of what Jesus would do on the cross.  The ark that saved Noah and his family told the story of salvation.  Boaz the kinsman-redeemer of Ruth was a promise that our Savior would become one of us to redeem us from our sins.

Throughout the Old Testament, going all the way back to the Garden of Eden, in signs and symbols and people and offices and miracles and events, God told a single story—the story of a salvation that he would provide in a son born to a woman.  And yet it was a story in which much was still hidden until this day 2000 years ago.  The Bible says that:

In these last days God has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

            The mystery of God’s salvation—the fullness of the story that had been told thousands of times in thousands of ways for thousands of years-- was fully revealed on this day in the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem.

            The sacrifices of Israel and the ministry of the High Priests and the rule of great kings were never meant to be an end unto themselves.  Within them and above them and beyond them always stood the ultimate saving purpose of God and that is the gift he gave of his own Son. 

The Old Testament tells just one story and that is the story of Jesus who is the last word from God. 

It is word made flesh that reveals God’s holiness in Jesus’ sinless life.  It is a word made flesh that reveals God’s wrath over our sins as Jesus dies a terrible death on the cross.  It is a word made flesh that reveals God’s love for us that Jesus dies in our place.  It is a word made flesh that reveals our hope for the future as we see Jesus raised from the dead and ascend to heaven.

The story of Jesus, the Word made flesh- stretches from everlasting to everlasting—from a Lamb slain before the foundations of the earth to a word that called creation into being to a word that takes on the flesh of a baby to a final word that will restore all things. 

That word that God has spoken IS Jesus Christ, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end because he is not just a good man or a wise teacher or a willing sacrifice-- but because he is God himself in human flesh.  The Bible says that Jesus:

Is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

            That this is true, is a story that God himself had to tell.  Even with angels singing and shepherds worshiping and stars shining we can’t think or reason ourselves into the wondrous truth that is made manifest in a manger in Bethlehem.  It takes God to speak to us so that we might truly know who lays there surrounded by barnyard animals.

Isaiah tells us that the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel, God with us—that his child will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  Gabriel promised that this child shall be called Jesus—the Lord who saves.  John says that in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God and that word has taken on flesh.

That is the mystery revealed—this is the miracle of the Incarnation:  that the baby who is born of a virgin is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.

There is no other word from God that needs to be spoken other than the word he has spoken to us in the birth of Jesus.  To know Jesus is to know God.  To see Jesus is to see God.  To hear Jesus is to hear God. 

Jesus is the one who not only called this world into being but he sustains it by his word and one day he will call forth a new heavens and a new earth by that same mighty word. 

From everlasting to everlasting the baby who is born this day in the city of Bethlehem and dies on a cross is God--the radiance of his glory of God and the exact imprint of his image. 

There is simply no comparison between Jesus Christ and anything else that the world has to offer in his place.  The Bible says that:

After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.  For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you”?  Or again, I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son”?  And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God's angels worship him.”  Of the angels he says, “He makes his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fire.”  But of the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. 

            When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary he told her that the baby to be conceived in her womb was the son of the most high God.  In our lesson today the Bible tells us that in these last days God has spoken to us by his Son who is greater and more important than the greatest heavenly beings.

What the writer to the Hebrews wanted believers to do—then and now—is to make a comparison between Jesus and everything else in the world even to the greatest heights of heaven so that we would understand the importance of putting Jesus first. 

            He knew that the Jewish believers were facing pressure on every side to turn away from Christ.  The culture on one side and their kinsman on the other side were pressuring them and even persecuting them so that they would abandon Christ and return to Judaism. 

It would certainly be easier.  They would have a legal status in the Roman system.  Families would be reunited.  Everything would be easier.

            We face the same kind of pressures today.  The culture tells us that if only we will abandon Jesus we can put ourselves first and make our own way and live for the day.  If we will only abandon Jesus we can join the thoughtful, cultured folk who have long ago freed their minds form ancient myths and fables.

The false church tells us that Jesus isn’t really needed at all—that what our faith ought to be about is having our best life now and learning the ten steps to getting what we want in our relationships and the five principles for winning friends and influencing people. 

And we can have all of that without bothering with a miraculous birth and a bloody sacrifice and a call to discipleship

But God wants us to carefully consider the choice that lies before us by comparing all that the world and false religious hold out to us on one side-- to Jesus Christ on the other and to ask ourselves this:  if the angels of heaven are no comparison to Jesus Christ what else is?

Jesus Christ is the Son of God.  He is the only way to have eternal life.  He is worshiped by the heavenly angels.  And unlike every promise of the culture and false religion, his throne is forever and ever and his gracious rule over our lives will not even be brought to end even by our death.  The Bible says that:

 You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.”   And, “You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands;  they will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment, like a robe you will roll them up, like a garment they will be changed.  But you are the same, and your years will have no end.”

            Here is some Good News for us on this Christmas morning:  the forces of evil in this dark and dying world will not endure.  A godless culture that wants to deny the Christ of Christmas will not endure.  All of the false religions of the world that promise their followers blessings apart from Jesus Christ will not endure.  All of it will wear out.   All of it will perish.  All of it will vanish.

            What will remain and endure and stand the test of time is the gift God gives us this day in his Son along with all the blessings of life and salvation he brings.  May God grant you gifts for Jesus’ sake!  Amen.